132. GEORGE CONDO: A SPACE BETWEEN ARTIFICIAL AND REALISM.
George Condo. Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris - PARIS
George Condo, Untitled, 1998, Collection de l’artiste. Photo: Courtesy Studio Condo © ADAGP, Paris, 2025
M-A: ‘George Condo’s mass of hybrid paintings, overwhelm as to be tainted with the stains of consequence, both ancient and future. Irritate the very essence of now.’
Paintings as drawings and drawings and paintings - his particular jarring of image - make for an active riot of fetishised depictions of violated bodies.
Akin to Philip Guston - whose tremulous paintings quiver with frenzied trauma - Condo is near carnal in comparison - obsessive of flesh - his primal depictions arc through emotional intrigue, at times wanton and macabre, at others surprisingly tender and yet consistently volatile, in composition and nuance.
As a tide, we return to the condition of man, the fundamental frustrations and release - as within the states of consciousness - we see the wrestling and resolve of an artist aligned to releasing an instinct to line - that is both mysterious in nature and rehearsed in nurture - asking the question; what is George Condo unearthing within works which seemly fixate on a surface, salacious to shock.
His expanded canvases have no central point of focus - a pictorial language of self-proclaimed 'artificial realism' - challenge notions of morality and freedom - as to watch stilled cartoon content caught between channels - outlawed as amusement - an inferno of confusion - as his hacked and torn collages - form plateaus - as the debris of an abattoir floor, familiar in anatomical form yet fractured in proposal - works appear as undulations of tone - as to be seeped in fluids of life no longer active yet fermented in genetic information.
As carved into canvas - a sequence of works further resist categorisation - part notation, part visual score, he further toys with definition - antagonising historic positions. Bleached canvas drawings appear gleaming - their inscribed surfaces pressed with information as if platinum sheets. Layer upon layer of a filigree of some ancient inscription - expose a crawling surface of the grimacing - as to scan the inky pages of newsprint - subconsciously seeking - chance forms within the spaces of white - a scrawling codex of rhythms running backwards and forth - forming a patina to mar - to exhaust into continuum.
GEORGE CONDO Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris - Until 15th February 2026.
With Thanks to Eléonore Allier